BREAKING: UN Chief Picks Nigeria’s Gen Obiakor To Lead Syria Inquiry

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has selected a Nigerian general to lead a U.N. Board of Inquiry to investigate a series of attacks on hospitals in Syria’s last opposition stronghold in the northwest.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric announced Friday that the three-member board, which will start work on Sept. 30, will be led by Lt. Gen. Chikadibia Obiakor and include Janet Lim of Singapore and Maria Santos Pais of Portugal.

Dujarric said the board will ascertain the facts of the attacks and not assess blame. Its findings will not be made public, he said.

Guterres announced the establishment of the board on Aug. 1 following a series of attacks on hospitals in the Idlib in northwest Syria.

In January 2018, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, had also appointed Obiakor to lead a special investigation into the killing of some Burundian refugees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.